Complexity of glutamine metabolism in kidney tubules from fed and fasted rats

Glutamine is an important renal glucose precursor and energy provider. In order to advance our understanding of the underlying metabolic processes, we studied the metabolism of variously labelled [¹³C]glutamine and [¹⁴C]glutamine molecules and the effects of fasting in isolated rat renal proximal tubules. Absolute fluxes through the enzymes involved, including enzymes of four different cycles operating concomitantly, were assessed by combining mainly the ¹³C NMR data with an appropriate model of glutamine metabolism. In both nutritional states, unidirectional glutamine removal by glutaminase was partially masked by the concomitant operation of glutamine synthetase; fasting accelerated glutamine removal by increasing flux solely through glutaminase, without changing that through glutamine synthetase. Fasting stimulated net glutamate degradation only by decreasing flux through glutamate dehydrogenase in the reductive amination direction, but surprisingly did not significantly alter complete oxidation of the glutamine carbon skeleton. Finally, gluconeogenesis from glutamine involved not only substantial recycling through the tricarboxylic acid cycle, but also an important anaplerotic flux through pyruvate carboxylase that was accelerated dramatically by fasting. Thus renal glutamine metabolism follows an unexpectedly complex route that is precisely regulated during fasting.